HARARE – A housemaid convicted of stealing US$25,000 from Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa on Tuesday told a court the minister underpaid her.
Tracy Manase, of Chimanimani, told Harare magistrate Nortilda Muchineripi during mitigation that she was tempted to steal because the minister paid her barely enough to make ends meet.
“I was being given ZW$120 as my salary,” she said. “I’m asking for forgiveness. l will call my sons and relatives so that they can pay back the money.”
The minimum wage for domestic workers in Zimbabwe, set before the government ended a decade of dollarisation last month, is about US$100 (ZW$860).
Manase was jailed for three years, but two years of the sentence were conditionally suspended – one year on condition she restitutes Mutsvangwa US$15,000 and another year on condition she does not commit a similar offence within five years.
The court heard that the money was brought to the Mutsvangwa home for “safekeeping” sometime in March by her unemployed sister, Joyce Mukono.
Manase resigned from her job in May and in June, Mutsvangwa discovered that the money was missing.
Manase was found with US$3,200 in cash and groceries worth US$6,200 when police raided her home in Chimanimani.
Mutsvangwa has faced uncomfortable questions over the source of the money, and why she did not trust the banking system which her government encourages Zimbabweans to use.
The Zanu PF Youth League last month accused Mutsvangwa’s two children, Elizabeth and Neville, of dealing in foreign currency which is illegal.
Police raided Neville’s Harare office in May and found US$200,000 in cash. He was not in the office at the time but two associates were arrested.
